South Australia will update two pieces of road legislation paving the way for driverless cars to be used on South Australian roads.
AT THE OPENING of the sessions of Parliament in South Australia, that state’s Governor said the Government would reform two pieces of road legislation, the Motor Vehicle Act and the Road Traffic Act and would legislate to allow driverless cars on SA roads.
“Our Motor Vehicles Act was written when the FB Holden was being released to the market in 1959 and our Road Traffic Act [arrived] two years later,” said Governor Hieu Van Le in a speech to Parliament as he announced the Government’s legislative agenda.
“Government will reform both pieces of legislation and also legislate for driverless vehicles, which will revolutionise transportation in South Australia.”
The announcement follows legislation in the UK and Germany allowing for driverless cars to be tested in certain parts of the country [READ MORE]. In Germany, the Government has given over the A9 autobahn for the testing of autonomous vehicles.
Germany’s Minister of Transport announced a project that will see a section of the A9 autobahn that connects Berlin and Munich set up for autonomous vehicle testing. To facilitate such testing, infrastructure will be provided to allow vehicle-to-vehicle communication, and reserving some of the 700MHz radio spectrum to permit cars to talk to each other. The project is expected to get underway later this year.
Manufacturers like Mercedes and Volkswagen are looking into having self-driving capability as a viable option for future buyers. Audi has said it will have an autonomous vehicle (with limited capability) available by 2017.
